A tough decision and a ray of hope!

Well, well, well.

It turns out most ad agencies have been sensible enough to recongise that if they cut their grad schemes in the recession, they won't have anyone to run their accounts in a few years time. So they haven't. The result: Some of you have got job offers! Hurrah!

AMV and McCann, to name a just a couple, have already sieved and sifted and sorted their wheat. More to follow later about how to get into advertising if you didn't get on a scheme, but for now let's look at the other end of the spectrum. For some lucky buggers, you'll now have a choice of jobs, and this is the most important career decision you'll have had to make since you decided what to study at which uni. I'd love to say it's exactly the same and whichever one you go to you'll love it. But it's not that simple this time round.

If you have a few job offers you MUST find someone relatively impartial in the industry and ask their advice. Just looking at the top agencies by billings is not enough evidence on which to base your choice. You want to join the best, most creative, most strategically excellent agency you can. There's a saying among some grads that training schemes give you chips to cash in at other agencies if you decide to leave the one you started at. Some agencies' chips are worth more than others. A bit of research and you'll be a high roller in no time.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and give you a simple list of the agencies that I think would be most exciting to join at the moment. Obviously view this as a subjective rundown, but I'm trying not to be bias and there are no ulterior motives...

So, in alphabetical order, the best agencies to join at the moment are:

AMV BBDO
BBH
BMB
Fallon
Mother
W&K

The training at Ogilvy is also supposed to be very good, but they're not really picking up awards at the moment.

If you get offered any of those, I'd go for them. If you get offered more than one of those, you're either very good or a lucky sod.

Once you get offered a job, agencies will want you to confirm very quickly whether you want it or not. This is to make you commit to them, because they know that if you're good the chances are you'll be offed jobs elsewhere, too. That's not a bad thing. Think about it like this: If you've got a girlfriend that everyone else fancies, it proves she's a hot girlfriend and you've done well. You just don't want her skipping town with anyone else. In most industries this analogy would die at marriage, but with the amount of time admen spend in the office, it's probably not too far off the truth...

If you get offered a job but have other interviews coming up and don't want to commit, that's fine. If the agency that offered you a job is worth their salt and really want you, they should accept that you want to keep your options open. After all, you've just spent lots of time and money at university opening as many doors as possible for yourself. Why close them all straight away? Just be open and honest with everyone. A friend was offered AMV before his McCann second round. He knew 99% that he wanted to go to AMV, but asked them for an extension to his decision to focus on the McCann interview. There was no problem at all. He got both.

Do remember that a verbal agreement, or even signing a contract, does not mean you HAVE to work there. If they get arsey, just accept the job and turn it down at a later date. They shouldn't pressurise you in that way. You've been offered a job because the agency sees you as a serious potential asset. They put a hell of a lot of time and money into identifying people like you, and now they have they don't want you escaping. If you do, not only will they have lost that asset, one of their competitors will have gained it. Double whammy.

Finally, if you have been rejected or not heard back, there is still a glimmer of hope. When the lucky buggers mentioned above who have more than one job offer turn one agency down, that agency looks at the next person down their list and goes after them. That very thing happened to this humble blogger at one London agency. So remember, if you don't want a job for sure, let the agency know asap, because there'll be someone else who'd be overjoyed with it.

As always, if you do have any questions or want advice, or just want to correct or argue with me, email me at admadillo@googlemail.com